Posts Tagged ‘conversation’

Twitter is nothing short of a phenomenon. At the very least, it connects people to each other through a rich and active exchange of ideas, thoughts, observations, and vision in one, highly conducive ecosystem (known as the Twitterverse). The social fibers that weave together this unique micromedia network is strengthened by the expertise, respect, trust, admiration, and commonalities. These fabrics bind the people who breathe life and personality into the global community as well as fueling the disparate micro communities that ultimately extend across the Long Tail.

My latest post is now up on TechCrunch. What follows is the unedited director’s cut.

The point of this article is to redefine how startups (not solely tech companies) view and define early adopters and the “echo chamber” in order to gain momentum in order to “cross the chasm” to the next tier of evolution, adoption, and monetization. This is about uncovering the very people who can benefit from what they’re introducing and in turn, evolve the product/service based on real world feedback.

I’ve been on a recent whirlwind speaking tour recently, sharing and learning all things related to the socialization of marketing and service as well as how to measure these new strategies and tactics. From San Diego to New York to SF back to New York and then Vegas and SF again, I was reminded that no matter how grand an expert one purports to be, the truth is that we’re all still trying to figure this out as it continually changes – together. I’m not talking about what to do or how, but what must be done in order to ensure that this global renaissance paves the way for permanent residence in every media property and business through value, education, and reform.

Conversations continue to splinter throughout every new blog post, micromedia community, network, lifestream and aggregated community across the Social Web. While some services are attempting to aggregate and host these conversations through a personal, customizable dashboard supported by yet another complementary social network, the truth is that they only continue to fragment our attention as well as our ability to consistently participate in every community where our contribution may be beneficial. From here on out, we have to carefully choose where we engage simply because we can’t participate in every network, regardless of our noblest of intentions. We need to prioritize our activity.

In the era of the Social Web, practically everything we create and share online is open to public discovery, interpretation, and feedback – positive, neutral and negative. While we can’t control perception, we can control what we share online. This series is about education and insight into how the real world works with the information that is available to them and how you can help cultivate and shape a powerful, personal brand online.

The Social Economy is defined by the exchange of ideas and information online, and in the real world, and is indexed by the dividends earned through new opportunities and alliances. Relationships are the new currency of the Social Economy as they fuel and extend interaction, insight, and loyalty, and in turn, contribute to the social capital of the individuals who actively invest in their personal branding portfolio.

Last year, Robert Scoble and Darren Barefoot debuted the Social Media Starfish to visualize and document the rapidly evolving landscape for social tools, services, and networks.

If you work in marketing, public relations, advertising, customer service, product development, or any discipline that’s motivated, shaped, and directed by customers, peers, stakeholders and influencers, monitoring and in some cases, participating in online conversations is critical in competing for the future.

In the era of the “new” social Web, communications is actually evolving back to its origins of communicating with people, not at them. It may seem implied, but communications does not, for the most part, embody two-way discussions.

Over the years, communications has evolved into a one-way distribution channel that broadcasts messages at target audiences. In the process, communications stopped being about communication, focusing instead on the marketing aspects of top-down message push and control, what we now commonly refer to as marketing communications aka marcom. Marcom embodies traditional and new marketing branches that include advertising, PR, Web/interactive, event, among many other disciplines (depending on the organization).

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ABOUT ME

Brian Solis is a digital analyst, anthropologist, and also a futurist. In his work at Altimeter Group, Solis studies the effects of disruptive technology on business and society. He is an avid keynote speaker and award-winning author who is globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders in digital transformation.

His most recent book, What's the Future of Business: Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences (WTF), explores the landscape of connected consumerism and how business and customer relationships unfold in four distinct moments of truth. His previous book, The End of Business as Usual, explores the emergence of Generation-C, a new generation of customers and employees and how businesses must adapt to reach them. In 2009, Solis released Engage, which is regarded as the industry reference guide for businesses to market, sell and service in the social web.